doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Lead Shot Ban in Montana

Don, that is exactly the point I made in my comment to the MT proposal. We have been seriously considering driving a few more hours beyond NW ND to hunt prairie grouse in some new country.

One of the key influence points is the Department of Commerce in Helena. They are very sensitive to the tourism dollar, particularly in todays economy. They also probably have more legislative influence the the DOWP. Copy them on comments.

Post deleted by bridge boy

I am sure glad that we have resolved this issue, I was worried it wouldnt get done. It doesnt matter if the lead shot ban laws are passed because, every one knows there is no science to support it, AND it doesnt matter anyhow, cuz there are no pheasants........in Santa Barbara

"Where the hell is the game?" isn't a bad question. MT has never been one of the top pheasant states, but Iowa certainly has. During the 80's and 90's, we led the nation in pheasant harvest more frequently than any other state. That's right--we even beat out SD. Since 2001, however, we have been at or below our previous all-time low (724,000 birds in pre-CRP 1984) every year except one (2003, the last time we topped a million). In 2008, it was 380,000. This season--likely lower. Last season was also the first time we ever dropped below 100,000 pheasant hunters. (SD had more NONRESIDENT pheasant hunters in 08 than IA had TOTAL pheasant hunters.) Lower license sales = less money for the DNR, which = reduced $ for habitat. Same story if nontox is mandated for upland hunting: Hunter numbers will fall even farther, as will $ for habitat.

The situation is discouraging enough without the push for additional nontox requirements.

Comment re non tox shot made as well as comments about the poor state of Montana phez populations.

Ben Deeble , I notice you have taken time from your busy schedule to comment on one of your favorite subjects. Odd isn't it, that you just happened to be looking at the board and were able to comment early? Give us a break !

I encourage all of you to make comments about this "no science" subject, contact friends and ask them to comment, too. If you know people on the Fish and Game Board, contact them.

Know that Ben Deeble is not "riding to the sound of cannon", for he actually is the "cannon" when using his position as an upland bird biologist with the National Wildlife Federation (Missoula office) to influence other state agencies and organizations. And I even suspect that NWF applauds his efforts for doing so, in that it meshes with their broader agenda.

If you doubt this, review his archived posts from July and August of 2008 wherein he used the Big Sky Upland Bird Assoc. (BSUBA) and the Montana Wildlife Federation (MWF) to front his proposal to study the removal of lead from the upland equation.

Fortunately, that one failed when literally hundreds of sportsmen and women from both Montana and nationwide responded with comment. The only downside to their collective effort then was that some of these folks actually got lectured by the phone receptionist at MWF as to how their lead shot was costing us bald eagles and other raptors through their thoughtlessness.

Should it ever be needed, I believe there could be a future for Ben at the Climate Research Unit (CRU) out of East Anglia....where more junk science is always welcomed. Meanwhile, 'Ride on', Ben .....as the rest of us express our concerns for ever receiving objective work/data from our various government agencies.


Rob Harris
Conner, MT

This has been a really interesting experience for me. Ten years ago, I too didn't believe there were any issues related to lead-based ammunition and wildlife. As a life-long hunter (ongoing)and old gun nut, I figured anything grandpa did couldn't of been all that bad.

Then I started reading about the accounts of various countries, states, and jurisdictions (including private landowners, police ranges, etc.) prohibiting lead ammunition. The lead ban for waterfowl was underway, for Pete's sake! I was perturbed, but also curious. I heard there had been studies, but hadn't read any of them. I started to get educated. What I found is there is an astounding amount of information out there.

Another one of the things most fascinating about some of the members of this board has been their tendency to shoot the messenger... me. And to deny the existence of documented accounts, science, proof, etc., while simultaneously opposing the collection of additional knowledge or science. It is a circular argument... "there is no proof, so we shouldn't collect any..." "there is no proof, so we shouldn't collect any...." There are probably even better terms for what amounts to a mental pathology.

The effort Rob Harris alludes to above is exactly a case in point. Two years ago I was part of an effort along with some other Montana sportsmen to have FWP "study" using both sociological and biological sciences, the state of understanding of the lead-based ammunition issue here in Montana. I know Rob exaggerates about the "hundreds" of sportsmen he imagines he organized to respond to my suggestion, but his effort was in effect saying there should be no further rigorous understanding of the issue in Montana. It sounds a lot like the strategy the WR Grace company used in Libby,MT as they killed half the town. All my effort called for was a "study" and he and others here were dead-set against it.

Now there is a proposal to ban lead ammunition from Wildlife Management Areas in Montana. I honestly had nothing to do with it. The person who did I'd never communicated with about the issue. I found out about it after the fact, and to my knowledge the actual instigator never knew of my previous effort to get some new science done. And here I am being accused by Last Dollar, Daryl and Rob of being the ring leader. If they continue to assert this, just know they are while generally intelligent men, on the issue of my involvement in this WMA initiative spouting absolute ignorant hogwash. And if they are gentlemen, they will recognize they owe me an apology.

I'm going to start posting here some documentation on occurance and effects of lead (primarily ammunition as the source) in non-target wildlife. The studies and documentation will be not only for the U.S., but also other countries.

Walter and Reese, 2003
Our most startling discovery was ingested
shot pellets in 7.1% of 140 non-empty crops (of wild chukar in Oregon). The mean number of ingested lead pellets was
1.7 (s = 0.5, range = 1-2 pellets, n = 8) and 2
crops had 1 and 3 steel pellets, respectively.
Investigation of 123 gizzards also revealed ingested
lead pellets in 7 (5.7%).

Need any more?

Ben . . . who's opposing the collection of information? You must've missed my above quote, straight from the MN DNR's Nontoxic Shot Advisory Committee, in which they clearly state that it is "unlikely that conclusive data can ever be obtained due to the cost of this type of research."

And from the Montana document, posted above: "Lead presence and accumulation under extremely low levels of lead shot shell use has not been established as a significant environmental concern."

Regarding your chukar information above . . . how did those chukar die, Ben? Were they found dead, and the lead pellets in their crops and gizzards determined to be the cause of death? Or were they killed by hunters, perhaps as part of some sort of study? If the latter, that reminds me of the study the Iowa DNR did on pheasants and bird flu. They examined 80-odd pheasants killed by hunters and found that something like 20% of them had antibodies to the bird flu. Bad news, right? Bird flu infecting a very high percentage of our pheasant population? No, as the Iowa DNR correctly interpreted it, that was GOOD news. What it meant was that these HEALTHY birds had been exposed to the bird flu, but not only hadn't it killed them . . . they remained quite healthy.

And Ben . . . police ranges prohibiting lead ammunition--please. Totally different situation than lead shot for upland game. I'm the former senior officer of a local Army Reserve Center. OSHA shut down our indoor range because of lead, but it had to do with the fact that the range was improperly ventilated. Far as I know, none of the soldiers were actually eating the lead bullets. And, as a precaution, we had all the full-time Reserve Center employees tested for lead level in their blood, since they're the ones who were in the building the most. No elevated levels of lead found in any of them.

And speaking of shooting the messenger, Ben . . . since it's the MN Nontoxic Shot Advisory Committee to the DNR and Montana FWP that either say there's no evidence of a problem with lead shot for upland birds and there's not likely to be, or that what evidence there is shows that it's not a "significant environmental concern", maybe you ought to be talking to the REAL messengers behind those messages. As the old song goes, Ben . . . it ain't me, babe. I'm just quoting from the MN DNR and MT FWP.